Penguin Random House India

When it comes to books in India, you need a publishing house that understands your point of view. Penguin Random House India knows the market, understands new forms and styles of literature in India, and is a subsidiary of the well-established and well-respected global publishing house Penguin Random House. As printers and publishers of adult and children’s fiction and non-fiction in the UK, US and India, we’re one of the most recognized names in publishing.

The result of a holy union between two publishing giants-Bertelsmann’s Random House and Pearson’s Penguin—Penguin Random House was formed on 1 July,2013, owning 53 per cent and 47 per cent of Penguin Random House respectively.

Penguin Books was the brain child of British publisher, Allen Lane, in 1935. Urban legend speaks of his fruitless quest to find a good book to read at the Exeter Railway Station, which, among other factors, led to the inspiration for Penguin Books and his producing a range of affordable and high quality paperback books. At the time, paperbacks weren’t the chosen format for anyone wishing to publish serious, well-written literature. The books soon found a profitable market in the UK, surprising initial sceptics of Lane’s idea, and setting the tone for intellectual reading as a layman’s game in the twentieth century-a tradition still upheld by you, amongst millions of other bookworms today. The image of the penguin bird as the primary character, that in collective memory is the image of Penguin Books, as well as the name, was suggested by Lane’s secretary, Joan Coles. The initial design was created by the then-twenty-one-year-old office junior named Edward Young, after a trip to the zoo.

Penguin India was started in 1985, and is the largest English language trade publisher in the subcontinent. Publishing started in 1987 with only six books. In 2017, as we celebrate thirty years of being in the region, you now get around 250 new titles from Penguin every year, along with an active backlist of over 3000 titles. While you may know Penguin India mainly as a portal for the classic fiction you love to devour, we’re also known for modern fiction as well as narrative non-fiction, including biography, travel, business, politics, history, religion and philosophy, lifestyle, cookery, health and fitness, sports and leisure, illustrated and children’s books.

Penguin India boasts a list of authors, some of whom are India’s favourites, who will make you long for book readings, new titles and life updates. Featuring three Booker Prize winning novels (The God of Small Things, The Inheritance of Loss and Life of Pi), and others by authors who have won virtually every major literary prize, including the Nobel Prize, the Magsaysay Award, the Jnanpith Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Penguin authors have also been recipients of the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, India’s highest civilian honours.

If you seek to get to the roots of Indian literature, Penguin India also publishes in Hindi. If you’re seeking to spread bibliophilia to the masses, Penguin India titles are available in several Indian languages through our local language publishers. These include Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Urdu.

You might also be familiar with a number of leading publishing houses for whom Penguin India is the exclusive distributor partner in the region, including the Penguin Group, A&C Black, Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Faber&Faber, Granta, Hay House, Icon, Kyle Cathie, Marshall Cavendish, Mira, Quercus, Sterling, Constable & Robinson, Oneworld and Zubaan.

Your book needs to come in many forms, and at Penguin India we’re trying to fulfill all of them! Our publishing initiatives in the recent past include the launch of our Indian Language Publishing programme in 2005. In 2006, we launched Portfolio, our dedicated business books imprint. For your intellectual hunger, in 2008 Penguin launched the non-fiction imprint, Allen Lane—the imprint of ideas-in India, as well as the Penguin Studio imprints that publish high-quality illustrated books. This was followed by the launch of Penguin’s cutting-edge literary imprint, Hamish Hamilton, in 2009 and Penguin Ananda, our mind–body-spirit imprint, in 2010, followed by our mass-market fiction imprint, Metro Reads, and our Young Adult imprint in 2011.

Penguin India publishes its children’s titles under the Puffin, Dorling Kindersley and Ladybird imprints. We were the first group company to publish Ladybird books outside the UK. Disney’s iconic Mickey and Friends characters as well as Aladdin, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Dumbo and the cast of The Jungle Book are also available under the Puffin imprint. The fully illustrated books includes readers, storybooks, colouring, activity as well as novelty books.

With our strong digital and online presence-the strongest among Indian publishers-and our robust book club-Penguin India hopes to stay connected with you and your needs at all times. The Penguin App, launched in 2011, as well as publishing over 2200 e-book titles every year contributes to Penguin India having the highest recall value in India among readers like you. Your weekly list of bestsellers, published by AC Nielsen, will be peppered consistently with Penguin India above other publishing houses.

Penguin India organizes the prestigious Penguin Annual Lecture—another unique property among publishers in India—as well an annual ten-day-long open air library and literary festival called Spring Fever.

As you make your way through books, either reading them or writing them, Penguin India has you covered no matter what mood, intellectual junction or stage of life you are at.